Picture of the Day: World’s Largest Reflection Pool

WORLD’S LARGEST REFLECTION POOL

When it rains at Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni (the world’s largest salt flat), the landscape transforms into a giant and shallow reflection pool. And if you happen to capture the phenomenon at sunset, you get a beautiful photograph like this.

At 10,582 square kilometers (4,086 sq mi) and 3,656 meters (11,995 ft) above mean sea level, Salar de Uyuni is unlike any other place in the world. Equally extraordinary is the salt flat’s ‘flatness’. Over the entire 10,582 square kilometers, there is only an average altitude variation of one meter. [Source]

The area is covered in a several-meter thick salt crust which also covers a pool of lithium-rich brine. In fact, the area is so rich in lithium, 50-70% of the world’s reserves can be found here. One final tidbit: the large area, clear skies and exceptional flatness of the surface make the Salar an ideal object for calibrating the altimeters of Earth observation satellites. How cool is that! [Source]